


all is full of love

by raijuthehyeju



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cybernetics, Episode: s02e10 The Red Angel, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 20:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raijuthehyeju/pseuds/raijuthehyeju
Summary: Keyla Detmer and Joann Owosekun have some time before they have to report back for duty after bidding goodbye to one of the bridge crew.But the implications hang heavier on Detmer than she realized.So maybe it's time to remind each other of the good times: past, present, and what more could come.





	all is full of love

**Author's Note:**

> title inspired by björk's song of the same name https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528 (and yes partially b/c it has robots but also The Song Absolutely Slaps) || let detmer and owo kiss cowards || thanks fuckyeahjola on tumblr for my life || @raijuthehyeju on twitter || thanks and god bless

_ <VIDEO RECORDED. DURATION: 10:57 SEC; LOCATION: USS DISCOVERY DOCKING BAY> _

Lieutenant Commander Airiam’s funeral was over.

A video of a friend’s memorial was taken.

And the UI of Lieutenant Keyla Detmer’s eye processed the footage and stored it away in her augment.

A video that Keyla didn’t even know if she could ever rewatch.

From the looks on the faces of the entire crew, no one really wanted to be the first to leave. Awkward shufflings began to meander towards the back of Discovery’s docking bay once Saru’s song ended, and Airiam’s casket disappeared into nothing more than a twinkling star. Commander Stamets quickly brushed a thumb under his eye as he left in a hurry, for he probably had enough funerals in this past year to last him the rest of his life. Michael gave Sylvia a hug, Tyler lingered as he usually did and unsure what to do with himself, Admiral Cornwell and Captain Pike murmured about something as they looked out into space beyond the bay’s containment field…  

Jo was there. Jo was there once Stamets had left, waiting for her, as always, and the two traded a look that said more words than they had the guts to say right now as the memory of Saru’s beautiful song echoed heavy in the chamber.

But wasn’t it beautiful, Keyla wondered as they proceeded into the starship’s halls? Wasn’t it a bittersweetly, sobering service with all of Discovery’s crew in attendance? She had been the honor guard alongside Sylvia to fold the Starfleet flag, after all, Jo had been a pallbearer- she got to say her own peace and helped lay the woman to rest, hands shaking as her mind wandered through memories. Memories of the Shenzhou, of the war, of Airiam’s desperate voice over Discovery’s bridge audio…

Desperation.

Desperation in her voice, because Airiam couldn’t control what she was doing, and it took her entire life away in a blink of an eye.

Took it away- would something like this take her away too, Keyla wondered? Everything, everything she’d done, gone in an instant, she thought. Voices fell hush and muted around Keyla and she began to sink into her own thoughts, hands reflexively going to hold her own arms as her mind spiraled into a dangerous place.  
No.

No- it couldn’t happen to her too, could it?  
Could it?!

Could she do something she didn’t want to- betray her crew, her family, and wind up among the other buried dead from the war, from the Shenzhou, laid to a cruel rest alongside Airiam--

She walked faster.

Tilly’s voice chimed through the murmurs. “Detmer?”  
Her throat tightened at hearing the concern in Ensign Tilly’s voice, she had to keep walking, _faster_ , faster, just _get out and go_ -

It was Jo’s turn to call out for her. “Keyla--”

Back home, back home right now to their quarters _where there weren’t dead bodies,_ echoed memories of Shenzhou’s Red Alert alarm blaring overhead and-

She overheard Joann and Sylvia talking, “You go after her, ok? I’m alright, I’ll be fine--” and a “See you soon, Syl--” But Keyla couldn’t care, she just had to be away from _people_ right now and go find somewhere dark and safe, who knew how safe she even _was_ \--

Not too far of a panicked jaunt down the corridor, she made it back to her and Joann’s quarters, the door shutting with no request for lights as Lieutenant Keyla Detmer lost any sort of composure she had. Her hands shook as she rubbed them up and down her face, Keyla’s touch catching the metal that cusped her eye socket as a ball bobbed painfully in her throat. Trembling fingers traced around the cybernetic indentation lines that graced her skin, bittersweet memories of her and Airiam discussing what new hardware was out there on the market and what might be good for upgrades. Michael, Jo, Gen, Bryce, and Sylvia had all gone with their two augmented friends to the Starfleet medical division in Paris for the armistice to update their eyes and get the same brand of focuser lenses, the two relishing in the day where they stayed in their respective beautiful, Parisian hotels looking like pirates to their friends and colleagues...

And the thought of their own bodies? _Keyla’s_ own body? Betraying her and a malevolent force taking advantage of her, all because of what her and Airiam had to have done to themselves to keep living?

Hurting fellow officers? Colleagues? Friends?  
Could she hurt _Jo_?

Another hard sob left her as one hand held her gut and another covered her mouth, not knowing if she should stand or sit or just bask in the silence, and--

The door suddenly wooshed open again, Joann Owosekun rushing in but slowing when she saw her partner standing by herself.

“Keyla?”  
She couldn’t even muster any words to reply with; what the hell _was_ there to say? The crew just buried a fellow Lieutenant, a _friend_ , and here she was, feeling sorry for _herself_ and running away from Joann and their friends…

“I’m… I’m sorry I ran off like that, I--”  
“It’s ok,” Joann promised. “We have 3 hours of duty relief, it’s… Keyla, what’s wrong, talk to me,” Jo urged gently, stepping closer to her as she saw Keyla’s trembling hands and reaching out to hold her shoulders. “I mean, I-- can take a guess, but I can see, there’s--”

Keyla found it impossible to speak again as she fervently shook her head, red hair waving back and forth as she tried to find the words.

“I’m… Jo, that was-- so scary and it’s, really only hitting me now,” Keyla admitted in a sigh of a sob. “Airiam’s dead. Dead because of something she didn’t want to do. She was this-- beautiful woman who got a second chance… just like me! Like me, and we were both happy about it, and it just-- her life ended because of something else, and I-- I can’t imagine if--”

“If what?”  
“W-what if something like that happens to _me,_ Jo?” Keyla felt herself beg as she watched Joann’s face fall and eyes widen, “some sorta-- fucked up AI shows its ass to me and takes over my brain? Makes me do things I don’t wanna do- what then, Jo!? W-what am I, I don’t even know if that _could_ happen but _if_ it could, I--”

Keyla let out a sob. “I got a second chance too, but what good would it be for if I hurt people, hurt _you--_ ”

Joann simply took her in a deep embrace, a beautiful hand of hers going to cradle the back of her head as the woman rocked her in place, standing there, allowing Keyla to sob into the empty space of their quarters. Tears streamed down the right side of her face, the Lieutenant’s chin feeling the beginnings of a soak now in Joann’s uniform jacket. She held her for all she was worth, her Jo, her Jo that she loved so much but she didn’t even know if Keyla could _hurt her_ without her _control--_

“You’re here,” Joann finally shuddered out, “you’re right here with me right now, hun, y-you’re here, with _me,_ and right now nothing, _nothing_ is going to change that,” she paused for a sniff, “okay? We’re here… we’re here, and we’re gonna keep being here. For each other, for Discovery, for Airiam.”

Keyla could only sob as Jo allowed her tears to fall.

After a minute, the navigator’s voice choked out, “I _am_ gonna ask though--” she managed, “in sickbay, with Doctor Pollard; she and Doctor Culber know my augs better than anyone. Tomorrow. I need to make sure there’s… subroutines, failsafes, something, I don’t want--”  
“I’ll go with you,” Jo told her with an extra squeeze. “If you want me to go with you to that appointment, I will.”

Keyla looked back to her as an eyebrow and augmentation creased upwards. “You’re sure?”

“I’m not going anywhere _without_ you,” Joann said with the most beautiful, tear-stained smile Keyla had ever seen. “...Literally. I’m not going anywhere without you. I can’t. And neither is Discovery; you’ve got the keys to the car, babe, I’m just a co-pilot--”  
“Shut up,” Keyla chuckled through a little laugh, their shared rocking turning into a little shoulder shove from the navigator. “...was my speech okay--”  
“It was beautiful,” Joann promised, “absolutely beautiful.”

Keyla couldn’t help it when flush skirted her meek smile’s cheeks at Jo’s confirmation, but her eyes darted downward. “Do you believe it?”

“Believe what, Keyla?”  
“That I’m… a whole version of me. That what you see, who you’re talking to, is… me.”

Jo’s smile softened as she looked her over, Keyla melting from the practical warmth that radiated from ‘her owo’s’ face.

A near-silent camera shutter clicked.

_ <IMAGE SAVED.> _

“I believe it because… oh, gosh, wow,” Jo laughed, giving a hard sniff and licking her lips to gather her words. “Because… you are Lieutenant Keyla Detmer and the light of my life. Keyla Detmer: pilot of the USS Shenzhou at the Battle of the Binaries, best shuttlecraft drifter this side of Alpha Centauri, only ginger I know with a metal eyebrow, navigator of the USS Discovery, woman who has the best undercut I’ve seen in my life, someone I can… have an _entire_ conversation with with just a glance at our consoles. Someone I get to see the infinite expanse of the stars with everyday. The woman I’d dream of meeting one day when I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, far away from that little house in that little meadow I lived in with 20th century bulbs and stovetops. And your smile is so, so beautiful whenever I _do_ get to see it sitting across from you.” Jo’s hands went to cradle Keyla’s neck and jawline. “You’re not just you. You’re the best version of you that the world has ever seen because you’re here and you’re beautiful and incredible. You know how I know that?”  
Keyla shook her head. “How?”

“Because you and Airiam proved it right.”

That got her lip wobbling again, a hard sniff… and she went in for a quick kiss before burying back into Jo’s embrace.

“I love you, Jo,”  Keyla breathed. She felt Joann’s hand brush around her bare side of her head and brush her implant, leaning into the touch where sensitive skin met the cybernetic piece. “So much…”  
“I love you too, Keyla.”

And they were content to stand there for another handful of minutes, Keyla’s organic eye finally losing its energy to make waterworks as she pulled back from Jo, her face tired and puffy from crying and damp with the taste of tears.

“Can we just hang out for a bit?” Keyla asked, “please? In bed, I wanna relax- nothing like that, just…”  
“Are you asking me to cuddle, Lieutenant Detmer?”

Keyla’s gaze immediately went downwards to pathetically try and hide a shy smile. “I might be, Lieutenant Owosekun.”

 

Not 10 minutes later, the two bridge officers found themselves snuggled in bed after both their faces were washed (with a small helping of comfort kisses in their bathroom), uniform jackets slung haphazardly over desk chairs and boots strewn carelessly on the floor. Keyla was leaning against Jo’s “DISCO” shirt and her legs had intertwined with hers under the covers, the bare skin of her head absorbing Jo’s warmth as her hand brushed at Keyla’s ginger locks on the other side. The two were currently deciding on a movie to absently watch, as a nap sounded incredibly good and incredibly close.

“How abooout something pre-WWIII?” Joann mused through a yawn, picking up her PADD and typing in ‘21st century cinema’ as she delved into ‘action/adventure’ and a holographic projection popped up in front of their bed to mirror the PADD. “I’m down to watch something a little mindless but still feel-good.”

“That sounds goo- oh man, what’s that one?” she asked, wiggling up some against Joann’s chest as she pointed at the screen to activate her navigation through the titles. “Nonono, not that, not that--”

She stopped, suddenly, when her eye caught a blue robot punching what looked to be a giant black monster on a movie title simply said ‘PACIFIC RIM.’ “There, that one- what is it?”  
The playful scoff Joann gave made Keyla squint as she felt a grin squirm against the edge of her lips. “You’ve never seen Pacific Rim?” Jo asked in amazement. “God, you really _didn’t_ live in the middle of nowhere- these early 2000s movies were all I had growing up…”

“I mean it already looks like it has a great concept,” Keyla pointed out as she scooted back down into the covers, “big robot, big glowy lizard… oh my god, 2013, this is _ancient--_ ”  
“And you’re gonna get _all_ of that in this movie,” Joann promised, feeling her cheeks beaming at a kiss to the shaved side of her head. “Do you want me to replicate some popcorn?”

“No, it’s okay,” Keyla sighed, “Sorry- it _sounds_ good but then my mouth is gonna get all gross from the salt when we have to go back to the bridge.”

“Mmm, you’re right…computer, set an alarm for return to bridge duty at 1500 hours.”

_“ <Alarm set.>” _

Joann suddenly picked up her PADD. “Oh, here, I should do this before we-”

“What’s up?”

“I was going to text Sylvia,” Jo told her softly. “Just let her know we’re doing ok... and make sure she is, too.”

Joann allowed a pause to hang, feeling a thumb rub small circles into Keyla’s arm. “She looked worried about you.”  
“I’m sorry I ran off before we could all gather again--”  
“Don’t be,” Jo assured. “Don’t. You needed… we both needed some space. I think her and Stamets went back to engineering anyway.”  
“Greeeat- perfect person for emotional consolation.”  
“Oh come on- he’ll be fine, she knows how to handle him… and he said some really nice things for Airiam, too.”  
“I know, I know…sorry, that was mean.”  
“If you say ‘sorry’ one more time I’m gonna have to shut you up, you know,” Jo teased.

Keyla let her head loll against Joann’s chest, feeling herself on the precipice of a tired-eyed nap. It could be so hard to find moments of respite, despite how much she loved Discovery and her crew: performing maneuvers like the mines threw at her today, forcing the warp drive to cooperate with the spore drive, plotting courses before the navigation HUD even had a chance to begin calculation…

“Maybe I _want_ you to shut me up.”

Joann gave a quiet snort as a chuckle rumbled against Keyla’s head, her fingers tracing the edge of where skin met augment on Keyla's head, just the way Keyla liked it, the way it made her toes curl and her breath hitch in her throat as only Jo could make her. But Jo stopped herself, giving the sensitive skin a little pat of affection to the spot as the two, again, exchanged their signature glances.

“...Yeah, not now,” she relinquished soon after, with Jo giving a quiet, good-natured ‘yeah’ of agreement. “Later. Sometime. Whenever.”

Another pause hung between them as the movie’s opening monologue began, Keyla feeling herself slip more and more into sleep’s temptation.

The navigator couldn’t help but allow a memory to creep back into her mind, head instinctually burying against Joann’s chest again as a grin crept across her face.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jo asked quietly.

Keyla’s smile grew even wider. God, was she that obvious? Or was Joann just that good, and could tell Keyla was smiling _just_ by the way her cheeks moved against her chest?

“Our date after the Paris peace armistice summit.”

“You mean our ‘kinda-date.’”  
“You mean where I asked if you’d want to start going out with me.”

Joann settled down more into the bed. “I still feel bad about crying.”  
“Nooo, don’t,” Keyla assured, “I thought it was cute, Airiam and Sylvia thought so too-- and come on, _I_ was crying-”

Joann allowed an embarrassed chuckle to leave a thought hanging. “Can I ask you something about it?”  
“Of course.”  
“When did you decide you wanted to start recording?”

Keyla felt the optical lens in her left eye twitch at the question, her subconsciousness most likely accessing her implant’s recording storage software. With a thought, she drug up the archived memory to the side of her vision, turning her head up to face Jo with a sleepy smile she knew the woman couldn’t resist.

“I wanted to record the whole thing, honestly. But the implant has only so much storage space, you know; gotta keep room for the other brain things… it’s not like Airiam’s where I have selective space, granted, it’s not my _whole_ brain, but… I think right when we left the second bar, and you stumbled out of its little patio before everyone else. You looked so pretty in the street lamp light, I couldn’t resist, and that’s when I just- had to ask before we got the rest of the gang.”

And in the corner of her left eye as she shut her right one, Keyla mentally commanded the “ _< PLAY VIDEO>”  _function as she stewed in the peace of their quarters.

 

She keeps it on a quiet audio function; rather than utilizing speakers, the outer side of her implant acted like bone conduction headphones that sent the sound through her skull and into her ear.

But the vision of dashing out the bar’s back door with _Joann to get some air onto the curbside patio, watching the woman lean against a street pole in the cool Parisian night as she laughed from a joke Gen Rhys made and the 2nd glass of wine she’d had… it was so beautiful, and the footage today kindled the same butterflies that suddenly fluttered in her gut as she stood in front of Joann all that time ago._

 _“What, too hot in there for you?” Keyla teased, letting go of Jo’s hand as she stood in front of her against the pole._  
_“It’s cute but oh my god, it’s so cramped in there!”_  
_“Then take off your jacket!”_  
_“Nooo, it brings my outfit together!” Jo whined playfully._

_She watches Joann smile as she looked to her then-friend, standing up straighter against the pole._

Keyla, in the present, remembers the warmth that spread in her chest as each second of this moment ticked by.

_And this is the bit where Keyla Detmer asks- when her eye hesitates with a sidewards glance but looks back up to Joann Owosekun._

_“Hey, uh, Jo,” Keyla starts, her voice going a little quiet, “can I uh.. Tell? Ask you something, actually?”_ _  
_ _“If it’s to have another glass of that Pinot, then no- I’m taking a break for like an hour.”_

 _Detmer snorts. “No, dummy… I ahm. Uh. You know, I-”_ _  
_

Keyla watches the ghost of her past self with an amused smirk.  
Just spit it out, stupid.

_“I... I was thinking about things after the ceremony today. About… how we came out of all of the war. Out of everything. Us. You. And… Jo, there’s-” Keyla admits, her voice getting a little strangled now as she has Joann’s full attention, “there’s no one else I’d want to have at my side on a starship. On a bridge. At a command console while I navigate. In duty, in… life... You’re supportive, you’re my friend, you’re so good at what you do, incredibly-gorgeous, lovely, smart, and…”_

_A shadow of Keyla’s wrist goes to wipe at her organic eye, laughing as her recording shakes some with the shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t know, date me? Maybe? Want a cyborg girlfriend? I can… I dunno Jo, I just- really care about you and I--”_

_“Keyla,” Joann says very softly, her hands going to hold Keyla’s, the navigator still remembering their fingers lacing and entwining for the first time. Detmer’s vision goes back up to look, really look Joann in the face now, and in front of her is the most beautiful, relieved, wine-blushed, beginnings-of-a-teary-eyed smile Keyla had ever seen._

_“Everything. I… everything you said I feel the same,” Jo said in relief. “And I… yeah! Keyla, you’re… amazing, incredible, funny as hell, beautiful, and… fuck I’m too tipsy to say everything I want to right now, but just-- yes. Yes Keyla Detmer; I will date you, and I will have a cyborg girlfriend, I will tell you that I care about you too, and I’m so, so proud of everything you’ve done.”_

_From the recording’s shuddering and hearing her own hard sniffles, this is the moment where present Keyla remembers and sees that past Keyla starts crying, Joann’s hands only letting go of her own clammy palms to rove up the side of her arms, onto her shoulders, to cusp her neck as a thumb went to caress her jawline…_

_“You look really pretty right now in this light, Keyla. I mean you look-- pretty in every light I’ve seen you in, but… can I kiss you?”_ _  
_ _“Of course,” she promised Joann, “of course you can, because I… wanna kiss you too…”_

 _So they got a little closer.  
_ _And closer._

_The recording of her eye blacks out for a moment as her eyes begin to flutter closed… and their foreheads bump one another, the women chuckling quietly at their own nervousness and relishing in the shared space._

_Joann smirks. “Really?”_  
_“You act like flying a starship through a time vortex_ isn’t _scarier than a first kiss with your new girlfriend.”_  
_“Then good thing I’m not the navigator.”_

_And now the camera recording went completely black for a split second as Jo’s head tilted to place a delicate kiss on Keyla’s lips- lasting for longer than she’d initially expected, but drank every second in, Keyla’s heart begging for another one as her hands rested on Joann’s hips… god, this was finally happening. Finally, after so many months of feeling strangled from the war, escaping another universe, dodging death and discovering new worlds, accomplishing new scientific feats, here she was with the woman who made her smile near every day, one of the most beautiful human beings she’d known, the love of her l…_

_Love?_  
_Holy fuck._  
God, she really _did_ love Jo, didn’t she.

_The camera’s video feed flipped back from darkness when Keyla’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the back door of the bar opening, a mass of ginger curls tumbling out as a very huffy voice called out “Mom??? Mom I can’t-- I can’t hear you, okay wait now I can-- what is it, I’m with my crewmates, I’m fine, I--”_

_And this is when Sylvia Tilly looks up from arguing with her personal communicator, seeing her two friends very close and very much in the middle of a now-interrupted kissing session. The camera of an eye darts back and forth between Joann and Sylvia as a long “ahhhhh” escapes Keyla’s throat, Joann dissolving into tipsy laughter as she scooped Keyla closer and rested her head against her chest to still look at a very surprised, very residual-happy-for-my-gay-friends Tilly._

_Joann gives a little wave to Tilly. “Hey girl.”_

_“Hey uhhhhhhhh Mom I’m gonna call you back alright love you lots bye--”_

_And without another word, she stuffed her communicator into her coat pocket, Sylvia waving her hands and trying to decide what to do next as her expression melted from surprise to infectious joy._

_“Did you guys just--”_ _  
_ _“Like a minute before you got out here, yeah,” Detmer laughed, watching a hand wipe at her own eye._

 _“Oh my god... I’m… I’m just-- yeah! Yeah you go, guys, I,” Sylvia laughs, putting a hand over her chest, “sorry I’m just-- really happy for you both and you’re like some of my best friends and--”_ _  
_ _A -THUD- suddenly sounded on the bar’s window beside and behind Tilly, interrupting their friend’s jovial rambling._

_And Keyla catches an eye of Gen Rhys cupping his face against the glass, resembling an ancient meme of a cat with a knife being pointed at it._

_“Oh my god GEN--!” Sylvia protested, her hand flailing now resuming in his general direction. Tilly motioned at Michael and Airiam to make him get away from the window, the two women pulling his shoulders back to be an actual decent human adult twunk and not five whole years old. He allows himself to be dragged from the window, laughing his ass off as Michael, Bryce, and Airiam next to him can’t help but now look where he was peering, Saru and Stamets still up at the bar, Rhys making a heart motion with his hands and a kissy face at Keyla and Joann..._

Airiam.

 _“I’m gonna kick his ass when we get back in there, I’m actually gonna do it,” Keyla says with a grin.  
_ _“Not before I do," Joann boasts, "not before it looks like Michael does... and not before I get to kiss you one more time."_

_And she does._

_And the video recording ends, the playback pane growing dark and Keyla dismissing it with a thought to reveal the present to her left eye and opened her right eye once again._

 

“Hey Keyla?”

She looks up to where the sleep-steeped voice came from.

“I’m glad you asked me.”

Keyla smiles. “Me too.”  


End file.
